"This USDA website will not be updated during a lapse in federal funding. Content on this website will not
be current or maintained until funding issues have been resolved. However, if there is information that affects
security, life, and property, this website will continue to update that information during a funding lapse."

Forest ownership dynamics of southern forests

Description:Key Findings Private landowners hold 86 percent of the forest area in the South; two-thirds of this area is owned by families or individuals. Fifty-nine percent of family forest owners own between 1 and 9 acres of forest land, but 60 percent of family-owned forests are in holdings of 100 acres or more. Two-thirds of family forest land is owned by people who have harvested and sold trees from their land. Assuming that corporate owners have harvested timber, then in all about 8 of every 10 acres of private forest land in the South is owned by individuals or organizations who have commercially harvested their timber. The average size of family forest holdings is 29 acres. Ongoing parcellation and fragmentation through estate disposal and urbanization will continue to alter forest management in the South. The forest products industry divested about three-fourths of its timberland holdings between 1998 and 2008, the largest ownership transition in the last century. The largest gain in ownership was realized by timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts. Forest products industry divestitures were likely driven by a combination of factors including mergers, alleviation of timber-scarcity concerns, new technologies for reducing the cost of fiber acquisition, redeployment of capital, and desire to reduce tax burdens. As a result of the transfer of holdings from the forest products industry to timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts, forest land held by corporations is now a more liquid asset class and will likely trade more frequently in the future. If this holds, individual corporate forest holdings could decline in size over time. Although the forest products industry land base was long perceived to be a stable and predictable component of the forest landscape in the South, corporate lands may become less stable and more changeable with implications for both timber and nontimber values of forest lands. Increased liquidity of forest assets argues for increased monitoring of ownership changes and of forest land transaction values to better understand the conservation implications of economic trends.